1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to hand truck holders and, more particularly, to hand truck holders releasably mounted to motor vehicles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hand trucks or "dollies", as they are commonly referred, are widely used to transport heavy or bulky objects over generally short distances. Briefly, hand trucks usually comprise a frame, a lifting platform mounted thereon, at least one handle and a set of wheels or casters for mobility. However, a variety of sizes and designs are available to meet particular needs.
These hand trucks have become an integral part or instrument for delivery personnel. Because of the physical difficulty of moving cargo or because of schedules or other time constraints, the delivery personnel often rely on hand trucks to transport the cargo from the delivery truck to the ultimate delivery destination. Each time, the hand truck must be unloaded from the vehicle to prepare it for transporting cargo. Due to the frequent stops over the course of the day, it thus becomes tiresome for the delivery personnel to constantly load and unload the hand truck into the vehicle. Therefore, it has been found beneficial to mount the hand truck to the exterior of the vehicle where it is much more accessible.
Various hand truck holders for securing a hand truck to the exterior of a delivery truck have been recognized in the past. In particular, these hand truck holders often are designed to mount the hand truck to the rear or front bumper of the delivery vehicle.
One problem usually associated with these prior designs is that these hand truck holders tend to be vehicle-specific. Depending on the make of delivery vehicle and the bumper configuration, the hand truck holders are generally designed for use only in conjunction with that specific vehicle model. These units are often not interchangeable. Mounting a hand truck holder to a vehicle for which it was not designed may result in interference problems which impede the normal operation of the vehicle. For example, the mounted hand truck holder may protrude too high whereby it may interfere with the operation of the hood. Similarly, too low of a positioning relative to the bumper may impede the movement of the vehicle itself. Accordingly, the hand truck holders usually cannot be interchangeably or universally mounted to numerous delivery vehicle models. Another problem associated with the prior art hand truck holders is that they are often hand truck model-specific.
Therefore, they are ordinarily only capable of properly securing a specific model of hand truck. Hand trucks which are dimensioned differently from the designated hand truck model generally cannot be supported adequately.
For instance, one approach is to provide a device which lockably secures the individual arms of the hand truck into lockable engagement with the hand truck holder. Typical of such an apparatus is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,443,730 to Meusel. In this patent, latching blades are provided on a mounting frame which contains openings dimensioned to cradle the individual hand truck arms. A pivotal mechanism is used to lockably engage the arms, thereby cradling them.
However, if it were desired to use another hand truck which, perhaps, included arms having a larger diameter or were spaced apart in a manner different from that of the designated model, a new hand truck holder which could accommodate the changes would be necessary. Meusel cannot universally accommodate a variety of hand truck designs.
Moreover, the locking mechanism of Meusel is directed more toward the prevention of theft rather than convenience. Thus, this locking mechanism is rather complex, difficult to use and laborious to assembly. In addition, the locking mechanism protrudes beyond the rear side of the mounting frame which requires a rearward clearance necessary to allow latching blades to pivot about unimpaired.
While the prior devices have been satisfactory for many applications, there has been a need for providing a hand truck holder capable of universal mounting to a plurality of delivery vehicles. Moreover, it is highly desirable to provide a device which is capable of releasably securing a plurality of different hand truck designs.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a hand truck holder apparatus and method which may be mounted to a variety of delivery vehicle models.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a hand truck holder which is capable of mounting a plurality of hand truck designs thereon.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a hand truck holder device which is durable, compact, easy to maintain, has a minimum number of components and is economical to manufacture.
The apparatus and method of the present invention has other objects and features of advantage which will become apparent from and are set forth in more detail in the description of the Best Mode of Carrying Out the Invention and the accompanying drawing.